UCLA In the News August 13, 2020

UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription to view. See more UCLA In the News.

Sen. Kamala Harris joins the Biden ticket | KCRW-FM

“Kamala Harris is homegrown here in California. But we’d be remiss if we forgot about the roots at Howard University, roots in the community. Started out as a prosecutor in San Francisco. Made her way to a Senate campaign. Led an incredible campaign for President of the United States,” said UCLA’s Isaac Bryan.

While museums are closed, check out UCLA’s sculpture garden | Los Angeles Times

Matisse’s formal progress in his paintings was one inspiration for them, which I stopped by to see the other day at UCLA’s Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden. They’re the pinnacle of that remarkable public collection of some 70 Modern works, which rambles over five acres of the school’s North Campus.

Amazon has a trust problem | Barron’s opinion

(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s Christopher Tang) Can U.S. consumers trust Amazon.com? Jeff Bezos, the company’s CEO, said in his opening statement at a House antitrust hearing last week that “80% of Americans have a favorable impression of Amazon overall, according to leading independent polls.” Americans trust only their doctors and the military more than Amazon to “do the right thing,” he added. Given the public concerns over counterfeit and unsafe products sold by third-party sellers, however, Amazon needs to develop and execute a comprehensive plan to protect its consumers. 

The cost of excluding undocumented residents from COVID-19 relief efforts | MyNewsLA

A UCLA study published Monday found that the exclusion of undocumented residents and their families from the $1,200 given to taxpayers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an estimated loss of $10 billion in potential economic output… “Our undocumented neighbors buy groceries, pay taxes and support local businesses in economic activity that generates $190 billion in government revenue nationwide,” explained [Raul] Hinojosa, who is a UCLA professor of Chicano studies and the executive director of the North American Integration and Development Center. (Also: City News Service and Phys.org.)

How welfare policies excluded Black Americans | Business Insider

Because discrimination was still legal when it came to jobs, Black Americans were routinely denied well-paying positions and were much more likely to be hired for low-wage work, according to Orfield, the professor at UCLA. “A lot of policies were designed that simply left out Black Americans who were sharecroppers and were doing low-wage work, which was excluded from some of the labor regulations,” he said.

Task force advising Newsom during pandemic remains a mystery | Los Angeles Times

Economist William Yu of the UCLA Anderson School of Management said that of the ideas from the task force, accelerating infrastructure projects may be the easiest and most effective way to stimulate the state’s economy. But he said rescuing businesses and the workforce depends mostly on the federal government’s response.

Businesses turn to Clorox and Lysol to vouch for their cleanliness | Los Angeles Times

“What you hope hotels are doing are things like encouraging physical distancing in common spaces and limiting the number of people who are riding in elevators,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “Those are things, in addition to cleaning, that will be very important in minimizing the risk of infection.”

Living near an airport may raise risks of preterm birth | New York Times

Living near an airport may increase the risk for preterm birth, a new study has found.… The lead author, Beate Ritz, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, alluded to these additional risks in people who live near airports. “These are often immigrants, minorities, people of low socioeconomic status living in housing that does not protect them from air pollution,” she said. “Ultrafine particles may be the last straw for these pregnancies.”

Is immune memory potentially a COVID-19 silver bullet? | KNBC-TV

“Understanding how T-cells work to prevent someone from getting seriously ill is obviously very important for something like vaccine development and potentially for treatments as well,” said Otto Yang, M.D., associate chief of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

California has spent millions suing the Trump administration | Sacramento Bee

The courts have found on several occasions, said University of California, Los Angeles law professor Laura E. Gomez, that Trump’s proposals are arbitrary and capricious. “I think that’s an area where Trump has gotten into particular trouble,” Gomez said.

‘Babar in the room’ | Inside Higher Ed

Rachel Lee, outgoing director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women, said that when COVID-19 hit hard this spring, “I could see first-hand, on Zoom, the difficulty for my faculty colleagues and staff at the center of juggling childcare for small children with their roster of teaching, service, research and social justice activism.”